Modern transportation of materials, particularly the transportation of heavy loads, ideally requires the integration of rail, truck and sea systems most adapted to the transport of heavy loads. Some progress has been achieved by the use of container modules which are readily loaded upon and unloaded from rail or truck to ship or barge; however, there is a vast area of transport involving the shipment of very heavy material products or equipment which does not lend itself to containerized techniques. Generally speaking, such heavy loads have heretofore required individual loading upon flat cars, truck beds or barge loading areas with consequent great expenditure of manpower and the use of heavy lifting equipment in situ wherever such loads require loading or unloading.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,737,061, a novel system for transporting load bearing pallets upon a liftable truck bed of unique design has been disclosed. Such pallets are capable of receiving a heavy-weight load, can be lifted for land transport, then dropped at a receiving depot. It is the object of the present invention to disclose a system for stacking and transporting load bearing pallets of different configurations and means for securing such pallets upon any load bearing surface, e.g. a railroad flat bed, barge or ship loading deck, or a truck flat bed. Since the means for securing the pallets is uniform and is independent of a particular mode of transport, be it land or sea, the pallets are readily shifted with their cargo from one transportation mode to the other.